Movie Review—Hidden Figures

Hidden Figures
Theatrical release poster

by Peter J. O’Connell 

Hidden Figures. Wide release: Jan. 2017. Runtime: 127mins. MPAA Rating: PG for thematic elements and some language.

Three women have skills, skills in higher mathematics. They want to exercise their skills and advance as far as the exercise of those skills can take them. These desires are simple, natural ones, but they make the women pioneers in three epochal developments of the 20^th century: the space race, the civil rights movement, and the women’s equality movement. The three women do not devote much thought to themselves as pioneers. They are too interested in just doing their work and doing it well. And for years society does not give much public recognition to their historic role.

Recently, that situation has changed. Margot Lee Shetterly’s book Hidden Figures and the current hit film of the same name based on it, directed and co-written by Theodore Melfi, have brought this important piece of “hidden history” to light. That hidden history is the story of Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae), and Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson)—three African-American women who work at the space agency, NASA, in the early 1960s, as the U.S. struggles to take the lead in space flight away from the Soviets. The three work as “computers”—human ones doing complex calculations—for electronic computers are not yet functioning satisfactorily enough for NASA’s purposes.

The women work at NASA’s research facility in Virginia, where that state’s segregation laws are still enforced. A computing group composed of African-American women works in an area separate from the main facility. Dorothy Vaughan has been functioning as a supervisor of the women there for some time but is denied the title and increased pay that should go with that functioning. Her immediate superior, standoffish Vivian Mitchell (a composite character well played by Kirsten Dunst), who is white, says that there never has been a “colored” supervisor. Hurt, Vaughan nonetheless continues her de facto supervising and also

teaches herself—and later other women—electronic-computer science.

Mary Jackson aspires to be an engineer but is denied the needed additional education because the only nearby school offering such classes refuses to accept black students. Eventually, she persuades a judge to let her attend night school to get the needed classes. Along the way she makes helpful suggestions to NASA engineers.

Most of the film’s attention is on Katherine Goble, a math prodigy. When Mitchell asks Vaughan to recommend someone who knows analytic geometry to join the Flight Research Division, Vaughan chooses Katherine. At her new job, Katherine finds herself in a room full of white men in white shirts. Her work is brilliant, but she still has to deal with the indignities of sexism and segregation, such as a half-mile hike to the “Colored Ladies Room.” And she has prickly relations with fellow mathematician Paul Stafford (a composite character well-played by Jim Parsons), who resists giving her credit for her achievements. But Katherine does gain fair play from the Division manager, Al Harrison (a composite character well-played by Kevin Costner), who mitigates some of the segregationist restrictions at the facility.

Eventually, Katherine earns the respect of astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell), who calls on NASA to “get the girl [Katherine] to check the numbers” before he makes his orbital flight that finally brings the U.S. even with the Soviets in the space race. (In 1962 the term “girl” was used to refer to females of all ages and races.) Mary Jackson also plays an important role in connection with Glenn’s flight.

Hidden Figures is not “edgy and experimental cinematic art” with “probing character development,” “complex themes,” and “subtle, subdued performances,” all directed at sophisticates. Nor is it a superhero/special events spectacle directed primarily at adolescents. It is a movie that everybody can enjoy. It’s clearly and cleanly directed, about important matters but without preachiness, deification or demonization. Dorothy, Mary and Katherine are heroines, but not saints. Refreshingly, the film’s main focus is on them as achievers rather than as victims. And Vivian and Paul, while imperfect, are not stock villains. The film’s acting by its three terrific lead performers is grounded in realism but with just enough “showiness” to be very crowd-pleasing. Hidden Figures is both inspiring and entertaining. See it!

Margot Lee Shetterly, author of the book Hidden Figures, is an African-American woman, daughter of a NASA scientist and a college professor. Of the women she writes about, she says: “What I wanted was for them to have the grand, sweeping narrative that they deserved . . . . Not told as a separate history but as part of the story that we all know.” That story is the epic that is American history.